Schools And Isms.

I am grateful to my nephew Pravin for bringing this story to my notice.

This story is from a book – ‘The prayer of the Frog’ by Father Anthony de Mello, S.J. The story I am referring here is from ‘The prayer of the Frog – Volume 1, Page 95, Part – Religion.

The resurrected philosopher.

An ancient philosopher, dead for many centuries, was told that his teachings were being misrepresented by his representatives. Being a compassionate and truth-loving individual, he managed, after much effort, to get the grace to come back to earth for a few days.

It took him several days to convince his successors of his identity. Once that was established, they promptly lost all interest in what he had to say and begged him to disclose to them the secret of coming back to life from the grave.

It was only after considerable exertion that he finally convinced them that there was no way he could impart this secret to them and that it was infinitely more important for the good of humanity that they restore his teaching to its original purity.

A futile task! What they said to him was “Don’t you see that what is important is not what you taught but our interpretation of what you taught? After all, you are only a bird of passage whereas we reside here permanently.”